Kirk Kendall | Lessons from the Field: Communication That Actually Works on Jobsites

Kirk Kendall

Communication is one of those words that gets said constantly in project management. "We need better communication." "Communication is key." It's become so generic that it's almost meaningless.

But on jobsites, communication is the difference between work flowing smoothly and work being constant chaos. And bad communication looks different than most people think.

Kirk Kendall has spent enough time on industrial jobsites to see communication failures in real time. They're rarely the dramatic kind—no one shouting or refusing to talk. They're subtle. A direction is unclear. Someone makes an assumption about what was meant. Work gets done in that direction. Then someone else encounters it and realizes that wasn't what was supposed to happen.

That's a communication failure. But it doesn't look like a communication problem. It looks like someone made a mistake.

The issue is that most jobsite communication is transactional. Someone gives direction. Someone receives it. But there's often not a shared understanding of what that direction means or why it matters.

Kirk has seen the difference when project leadership approaches communication differently. Instead of just giving direction—"frame the north wall"—there's context. "We need the north wall framed so that the mechanical rough-in crew can start next week. That means the entire perimeter needs to be framed by Friday." Suddenly the crew doesn't just know what to do. They know why it matters and when it matters.

That's a small difference in how you talk. It's a massive difference in execution. When people understand why something matters, they do it better. They're more careful. They notice if something doesn't fit their understanding. They speak up if they see a problem.

The same applies to how information flows across different parts of a project. A superintendent on one side of a site doesn't know that the other side's work is changing. So he proceeds with his plan. Then that plan becomes incompatible with the actual changed situation. More chaos.

On well-run jobsites, Kirk has seen communication that feels ridiculously simple. A daily brief where the superintendent walks through what's happening that day. What's the priority? Who's working where? What could conflict? What changed from yesterday? It takes 15 minutes. But everyone knows what they're working toward.

There's also something about in-person communication versus written communication that matters on jobsites. A bulletin gets issued. Some people read it. Some don't. Some read it but don't really internalize it. But when a superintendent stands in front of a crew and talks about something, there's engagement. Questions get asked. Misunderstandings are surfaced.

Kirk has seen safety situations that would have been dangerous become non-events because the superintendent took time to brief people. "Here's the hazard we're watching for. Here's why it's a risk. Here's how you keep yourself safe." That's different from posting a sign.

Written communication matters, but it's typically for documentation and confirmation. A brief happens in person. A direction is given in person. Then it gets documented so there's a record. But the understanding happens in the conversation.

There's also communication across project levels that requires attention. A foreman needs to communicate with their crew differently than a project manager communicates with a foreman. A foreman needs to communicate upward to the superintendent differently than a worker communicates to a foreman. The information flows in different directions and takes different forms.

Some project teams miss this. A decision gets made at the project management level and somebody sends an email to the whole jobsite. But the foremen don't know how to translate that into direction for their crews. The crews don't know what it means for them. But they assume they understand. So they do something based on their assumption. Then it turns out they misunderstood.

The fix: make sure information actually gets communicated through the right channels. A foreman needs to understand a decision well enough to explain it to his crew. That might require more conversation upfront.

Kirk has also seen communication that's inhibited by hierarchy or fear. A crew member notices something that doesn't look right, but doesn't speak up because they're not sure about the chain of command, or they're worried about being wrong, or they've seen that speaking up gets you criticized. So they stay quiet. The problem escalates.

This is particularly important with safety. If someone on a jobsite sees a hazard and doesn't feel comfortable speaking up, people get hurt. Some of the safest jobsites Kirk has seen have leaders who have explicitly created a culture where speaking up is normal. Not in a complaining way, but in a "I noticed something that doesn't match my understanding" way.

That requires leadership that asks for information from the front line. That genuinely listens. That doesn't punish people for raising issues. Some leaders create that naturally. Others have to be intentional about it.

There's also something about clarity in communication that reduces problems. A job assignment that's vague creates problems. "Work on the east section" is vague. "Install the rebar pattern in the east section marked on the plans, making sure the spacing matches the calculations" is clear. When people know specifically what they're doing and why, execution improves.

One of Kirk's core principles is that good leadership removes ambiguity. That applies directly to communication. As a leader, your job is to be so clear about expectations, about priorities, about the reasoning, that people don't have to guess. They know.

The communication style also matters. Communicating in a way that's collegial—treating people as intelligent partners in solving problems—creates different responses than communicating in a command-and-control way. People are more engaged. They're more likely to speak up if they see a problem.

On large industrial projects, communication is infrastructure. It's what allows the dozens or hundreds of people to actually work as a coordinated team instead of a collection of people working in parallel while occasionally bumping into each other. Getting communication right doesn't make a project. But getting it wrong definitely breaks one.